You have always wanted to be a great writer, a genius among wordsmiths. You have dreams of becoming a member of the elite writer's fraternity. Your aspirations of winning the Pulitzer Prize and becoming a NYT's Best Selling author, makes your heart race with anticipation. You were born to write.

Unfortunately, your pen sporadically touches paper and your definition of reading allot is based on your Twitter feed. So why have you wasted time? Why have you allowed ambition to atrophy? Why have you permitted Resistance to win? Author Steven Pressfield types, “The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.”

Ever since grammar school, I wanted to become a writer; to put pen to paper and conjure words that would garner immediate praise. So I wrote; pages of accounts, notebooks of adventures and volumes of stories.

Unfortunately, there was no conjuring and no one, but my mother praised. Slowly Resistance chipped away at my soul’s evolution until there was no more importance left. Pressfield explains, “Resistance's goal is not to wound or disable. Resistance aims to kill.”

Yes, there are many strategies for becoming a better writer:

7 Tips…

10 Ways…

4 Simple…

Unfortunately, these strategies go to crap when Resistance attacks. She is like a seasoned street fighter, landing brutal combinations of self-sabotage, self-deception, and self-corruption. Intensifying the brawl the crowd taunts you by cheering, You’re not a good enough! You’re not a good enough! You’re not a good enough! Resistance has planned your defeat flawlessly, humiliated you retreat to the warm embrace of conformity.

It’s not your fault. Genetically, you are at a disadvantage. Resistance is a primordial algorithm that feeds off your fears. Pressfield narrates, “We experience Resistance as fear. But fear of what?”

Steven continues, “Fear of the consequences of following our heart. Fear of bankruptcy, fear of poverty, fear of insolvency. Fear of groveling when we try to make it on our own, and of groveling when we give up and come crawling back to where we started. Fear of being selfish, of being rotten wives or disloyal husbands; fear of failing to support our families, of sacrificing their dreams for ours.”

While you cannot kill Resistance, you can defeat her. Great writers such as Steven Pressfield, Stephen King, Maya Angelou and Rosanne Cash have defeated Resistance. How? The pilgrimage requires an epochal mindset. An unrelenting will to becoming a writer. You must absorb the brutal combinations, the taunting and then hit back.

The poet Archilochus wrote, “Plant your feet and square your shoulders to the enemy. Meet him among the man-killing spears. Hold your ground.” In the same mindset Pressfield mentors, “The professional loves it so much he dedicates his life to it. He commits full-time.”

You must commit to becoming a writer. Stephen King scribbles, “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” King continues, “You have to read widely, constantly refining (and redefining) your own work as you do so."

So this is it. You are now at the crossroads. What are you going to do? Don’t take too long to decide; time is against you. It’s a finite resource that once gone; it’s gone.

Author Tony Robbins tells this story, “When you are sitting in your rocking chair at the end of your life. One of your grandchildren asks you, “What are you most proud of grandpa?” How will you respond? That you had a grand life? Or that you have many regrets?”

The story has a sickening feeling, but sobering nonetheless. It’s your moral duty to become a great writer, a genius among wordsmiths, and member of the elite writer's fraternity. So what are you going to do?